Theron
The feeling of my mate’s hands around my chest as the wind whipped through my hair was fucking amazing. I could feel her nuzzling into my jacket, taking in my scent. Whisper needed me. And that was a heady and powerful feeling. The fact that she wasn’t ready for a bite was fine. We had both been through a particularly harrowing experience, and from the glimpses that she’d given to me about her life before Paradigm, her road had been a rocky one. I could wait. Mating urges could be contained, if it meant my mate felt safe and protected.
Darkness fell as we made our way through Indiana. Fewer and fewer motorists passed us by, and the dark gave us a modicum of privacy. Whisper hummed against my back, rubbing her face back and forth. Whether it was because her animal’s need to mark me, or the late hour, I wasn’t going to complain. Having her scent on me settled the beast in my belly.
The road stretched on, mist rolling through as the sun warmed fields around us cooled, making it harder and harder to see where my next turn was. The chill settled into my bones, making my fingers around the throttle ache. But we couldn’t stop. Getting to the Lords of Khaos: Columbia chapter was the only stopping point that we had. I’d already made the mistake of stopping for gas and seeing my face on the fucking evening news. We’d had to take a detour, circumventing, going south and putting in a false trail. We couldn’t have anyone knowing our route.
By now, the world would know our names. Even stopping at the Lords clubhouse would be risky. Our faces would be plastered all over social media and the internet. And my mate was tightly connected to the motorcycle club. But it was our only option.
Speculation had to be running wild. The entire world wondered if what they had been seeing was a camera trick, or CGI. I only had a moment to glance at the headline that was running across the bottom of the screen before I turned tail and ran. Giant Grizzly Terrorizes St. Louis.
We were screwed.
Rocco had been right, of course. In an age of technology, where pictures and video could be shared around the world in seconds, we couldn’t clean up the mess with magic. It just wasn’t possible. Far too many interconnected parts for it to be feasible. Magic had its limitations just like everything else.
I had bundled Whisper back onto my bike, and burned rubber getting out of there. After that, I had stuck to rural routes. It would take longer to get to Columbus–or right outside where the Lords had set up their clubhouse–but the fewer people around, the better.
“Scar,” my sleepy mate mumbled, her face pressed into the back of my jacket. “How much longer?”
“Bit of a way, darling,” I said, patting the hands that she had wrapped around my chest. “Gotta keep those pretty blue eyes open for me, mate.”
“Trying,” she sighed, rubbing her face across the leather covering my shoulders. “It’s been so long and my butt’s asleep.”
“Yeah, baby, I know.” I kept my hand over hers as long as I could, before taking it away to keep the bike pointed in the right direction. It wouldn’t do for me to crash the motorcycle. Our glamours were only good enough for passers by. Only enough to keep cars from skidding to a halt when they saw us, and causing accidents. Twenty to thirty people max. No stopping.
The moon rose full and high over our heads by the time I could finally see the clubhouse in the distance. It wasn’t much to look at. An old motel that had probably been abandoned and the Lords had picked up cheap. But there were beds and bathrooms, and that’s all the two of us needed. A place to crash before we made the trip up to New England.
“Home sweet home,” I growled as I pulled the bike onto the gravel drive. “We’re here, darling.” I shook her fists that had a death grip on my chest, and could feel my mate coming out of a daze.
“Want a bed.” She sagged off the bike the moment I pulled it to a stop, and practically poured herself onto the sidewalk in front of the bunk house. “And a kiss.” Leaning up against the old wooden siding, my beautiful mate puckered her lips and me, and made the cutest little kissing noises.
“You sure?” I asked, dropping the bike onto its stand and dismounting.
“Need grounding,” Whisper hushed me, pressing a finger to my lips to keep me from speaking. She was drunk with exhaustion, but I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers carefully anyway.
The lush swell of her lower lip brushed against mine, and I instantly wanted more. I wanted to dive between that cupid’s bow mouth and taste her essence. I wanted it on my tongue, in my nose, surrounding me. But instead of kissing back, she froze.
Like a deer in the headlights, my mate stood there, like she wanted to run. Carefully I pulled back, my hands going up.
“Too much?”
Her little head nodded almost imperceptibly, but her eyes bugged out like terror was riding her. And then her eyes went glassy with sleep again. Those beautiful eyes bled to the onyx black and her lips turned down into a deep frown.
“We need sleep,” she growled, stepping forward and letting her power roll over the entire parking lot. “No more touching.”
“You taste sweet, Whisper.” I held my hands in front of my chest, waiting for my mate to settle her bear, to contain the grizzly that had reared up, and was reflecting out of her eyes. Black as pitch. I longed for her baby blues, the ones that said she was feeling safe. And I was happy to stand there and wait. “But you’re right.” I checked the time on my phone, and weariness swept over me so hard I swayed with it. “We need sleep.”
“Good.” And like that, the tension disappeared. Her dominance evaporated with a thought, and she was grabbing our overnight bag and stalking towards the members of the Ohio Lords chapter, all of whom were looking at me like I had lost my fucking mind.
Perhaps I had, because I just shrugged off the near evisceration and followed my mate up the steps to the room that we had been given. Slipping inside, I kicked off my boots and looked at the single queen sized bed.
The fucking thing wasn’t even big enough for me on my own, let alone sharing it with a skittish woman who was in my care. Or perhaps I was in hers, since she was a member of the Lords of Khaos, and I was the tag along.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I offered, grabbing a pillow from the bed and tossing it on the ground next to the mattress. The carpet looked like it could have survived the apocalypse. Indoor outdoor and shit brown. It also looked uncomfortable as hell. But I’d slept in worse places–of course not one of them came to mind as I stared at the ground next to the admittedly not new mattress.
“That’s stupid,” she reached down and tossed the pillow back on the bed. “We’re mates.”
“Whisper,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Will you sleep if I’m right there against you?”
“Did at Paradigm.” She shrugged. “Only sleep I got the whole time I was there.”
“You aren’t going to wake up with night terrors and freak out?” I asked, raising my brow. “I don’t want to scare you.”
“Too late,” Whisper hummed under her breath, using her dreads to hide her flushed face from me. The thick ropes of hair did a poor job of veiling her cheeks from my eyes though. “I’m scared of everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“Except my brothers and Cherry. And maybe Baby and Peach.” She stood there, her index finger tapping against her lips as she thought, and the only thing on my mind was how much I wanted to be the tip of that finger. Allowed to press against those pretty lips without the scent of her fear filling the room. “Misha doesn’t scare me, nor does Mama Bear. Holly’s sweet, but bunnies are terrifying.”
“Bunnies?” I asked. Clearly the exasperation in my voice struck a nerve, 'cause my mate rounded on me, hands on her hips, and a dark expression on her face.
“You don’t want to run across the bunny mafia, Scar,” Whisper hissed, her eyes darkening, but not going black. “They’re everywhere. You know the phrase fuck like bunnies isn’t just a silly saying, they’re fucking everywhere. Their warrens stretch across the damned country. Even the dragons are in league with them.”
“I take it you’ve witnessed some scary bunny action.”
“Ask Finn or Kafka about the bunny problem,” was all she said before she grabbed the little bag that Rocco had put together for us, and disappeared into the bathroom, the lock clicking with a snick.
* * *
I stared up at the ceiling doing my best not to move, as my mate grumbled in her sleep next to me. Every brush of her against my body set my nerves alight. My beast was clawing at me to pull her into our arms, to cuddle her up and put my teeth to her skin. He wanted her bound to us. The fear of what could happen if we didn’t secure our bond circled round and round my head.
My beast wasn’t content with just having her close, the delicate scent of my mate mingling with mine as we crashed for the night in the small dark room at the back of the Lords Ohio chapter. He wanted to possess her, to cover her and make her ours forever.
Little things like human emotions, past trauma, and mental health didn’t mean anything to my griffin. He understood only the most basic of things. She was ours, and we knew how to claim her. As far as he was concerned there was no reason to wait. Once Whisper was bonded to us, she would love us.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the way of human emotion. But my beast just clawed harder, the more I pushed him back down. Reasoning with him was next to impossible, so I just pushed images down to my griffin, the way that Whisper would shrink away from us if we got too close. The look of terror on her face after I had given her the kiss she had so sweetly asked for. And in turn, my animal pushed images back at me. The way Whisper had rolled her hips over us, wetting our skin with her arousal. The way she clawed at our hair when we had pressed our face to the junction of her thighs and taken in the sweet scent of her need.
In the end, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing I could just close my eyes and fall into the peaceful slumber that my mate had found. Her face pressed into my arm, fingers curled around my wrist, as she snored quietly.
My cock was so fucking hard that sleep was impossible. Instead I spent six torturous hours locked in place, waiting for daylight, and another ten hours on the back of a bike, pointed towards Ironwood Heights, and Whisper’s home.
My mind buzzed with the need to puzzle out my mate. One moment Whisper was sweet and shy, a bit sarcastic, and a lot afraid. Then with the flip of a switch, she was the complete opposite, eyes bleeding black and terrifying with a snarl on her lips. I needed her steady. I needed to know what was going on in that pretty little head of hers, to feel her mood shifts. And the only way to do that was to bond her. And she was very much not ready for that. It didn’t spell happily ever after and two point five kids with a white picket fence and a dog. Not that having a dog was ever an option for me, but the sentiment was the same. I had miles to go with my mate before she would be able to accept our bond, if she ever fully would. And I had to move at her pace. While somehow managing my raging beast.
Whisper was as dominant as they came, and terrified of everything. Not a good combination. I had seen for myself the blood thirst that simmered below the surface. My mate was a danger, and if I couldn’t bond her, and settle her, at some point she would need to be put down.